The Emma Press

@theemmapress.bsky.social

small press | big dreams Birmingham-based independent publisher of poetry, children's books, short-form prose and translations. www.theemmapress.com

Our online shop will be closed 22 July - 21 August while I focus on reading our May submissions and have a break! Thank you for your understanding. All postal orders placed after 5pm on 21 July will still go through - I'll just post them out after 21 August. You can still shop via buff.ly/Y2MhXru

Our online shop will be closed 21 July - 21 August while I focus on reading our May submissions and then have a break! Thank you for your understanding.

My last posting day will be 21 July. All postal orders placed after 5pm on that date will still go through - I'll just post them out after 21 August. You can still order ebooks & pre-order our next title, too.

If you need your books before then, please consider supporting your local independent bookshop or - if you’re a UK customer - ordering via our page on Bookshop.org (we get 10% of any book you order after clicking through this link, not just ones we've published)!

They're here! The first copies of MILK & MOON-WATER: Charm Poems by Milena Williamson 💫 Printed by Ersatz Nottingham (formerly the Holodeck), these books are a hymn to artisan printing: thick creamy paper & saddle-stitched. And as always so beautifully packaged! Pre-order here: buff.ly/mMVczuR

The close-up of a book against red wrapping paper. The author's name is leggible: Milena WilliamsonBildMilk & Moon-water, Poems by Milena Williamson, held up against a black fireplace.

'Charm for a Sudden Stitch', from Milena Williamson's MILK & MOON-WATER 🌸 Written and performed by Milena Williamson; editing and subtitles by Bebe Ashley; filmed, directed and edited by Rhiann Jeffrey. First published by Copper Nickel. Join us for the online launch: buff.ly/kjHb3Je

Now out in the wild: AARDVARK DAY by Victoria Gatehouse! The perfect gift for young naturalists that will ignite a love of poetry, too 🧡 Join us to online celebrate the book's launch TONIGHT with Victoria & illustrator Kate Lucy Foster - all welcome! 7pm, via Zoom: buff.ly/jnMCyXd

Children's hands placing pebbles round a book that say 'out now'.Bilda book surrounded by ivy

RIP Carol Rumens, 1944-2026 ❤️ 'Nant y Garth' is from Carol's book BEZDELKI, which explores how death isn’t purely loss. Instead, a kind of conversation between two people can be continued through willed acts of memory, whether by rooting through a toolbox or by revisiting well-loved books.

As the bus wound its way up Nant y Garth
it was as if the birchwoods either side
were gathering height. I heard their
choirs amassing: bass, tenor, alto,
soprano, entering one by one, like green
combers, cliffs of melody, with depths
and peaks I couldn’t fully sense, but knew
sang gladness – gladness of the wakened branches,
and peeled buds, and leaves called to the sun
for the first time, to stream into their year –
no, their much-less-than year – of darkening grace.
I could no more believe the sap insensible
than I believe the dead are broken branches,
and all their self-songs censored or extinguished.

"Aardvark Day is wonderful and wonder-full and I loved it." ~ Rachel Piercey We're thrilled with this praise from Rachel for AARDVARK DAY, the debut children's poetry collection by Victoria Gatehouse🩷 🌿 Order your copy today & receive for publication next week: buff.ly/JsMVKYO 🌿

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HUGE CONGRATULATIONS to Kwan Ann Tan, author of THE WAITER, *longlisted* for the 2026 Wilbur & Niso Smith Foundation Adventure Writing Prize 🎉 🎉 *Available as audiobook & paperback now* We're thrilled to see Kwan Ann's debut here in such good company ~ wish us luck! 💜

The Waiter LONGLISTED FOR THE 2026 WILBUR SMITH ADVENTURE WRITING PRIZE.Images of 12 shortlisted titles.BildBild

Have we left it too late for our planet? You decide with these poems from AARDVARK DAY by Vicky Gatehouse! Perfect for KS2 students (Y4-5) exploring living things & their habits, human beings & the environment & poetry 🪴 Available in all good bookshops 14 May 2026 / pre-order: buff.ly/uZuQLN2

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Pre-orders now open for MILK & MOON-WATER ~ Charm Poems by Milena Williamson 💫 A collection of 11 Old English metrical charms – ancient incantations spoken to ward off harm – creatively translated into magical and medicinal spells for the modern reader: buff.ly/mLxxThz Cover by Maggie Mason

Charm for Unfruitful Land (Remixed)
The good news is the wolves have returned to Europe.
The bad news is people are killing wolves again. I own no
underwear from this island. There is no purely wild place left
on this island. I buy wildflower seeds from the dark web.
I walk on the earth while there is still time and sprinkle seeds
on riverbanks, lawns and graveyards. The smoke pours
across borders and becomes the sky. It’s time to buy an air filter
and give it a name. I am stuck inside a well and Europe
is the silver bucket framed against the sky. We are living
in the overlap. We can create clouds from seawater.
We drilled into Antarctica to find the most transparent ice.
This ice is compressed by other ice so it’s dark down there,
dark enough to see neutrinos belly-flop into light.Bild

Join us to celebrate the launch of Victoria Gatehouse‘s debut poetry collection for children, Aardvark Day! Vicky will share a selection of fun and fact-filled poems about fascinating creatures and talk about her inspiration for the book. 🐾 Register here: buff.ly/Hcrwoaz

Join us to celebration the publication of Aardvark Day with poems by Victoria Gatehouse. Thursday 14 May, 7pm. Online via Zoom.

"[...] when that poem happened it really drew all those different things together, and it just felt like the right symbol that seemed to connect what this whole project was." Zain Rishi talks about the process of writing NOON!!🩷 ✨ Order your copy here: buff.ly/YeZhklk

We are so saddened to hear of the passing of writer, illustrator and translator Lilija Berzinska. We had the pleasure of working with Lilija on the English edition of her book "The Skeleton in the Cupboard" in 2024, and she was an absolute joy. Our thoughts go out to her family. buff.ly/GmMXBCR

Photo of Lilija on a beach, holding a cat.